Gestalt Principles

 This was my first time getting to use a studio for photography which was very exciting and fun. In these images, I decided to draw upon gestalt principles and try to blur the contrast the empty backgrounds and the figure. Obviously, these images originally had visible clothing, but instead of showcasing them, I decided to utilize their shape. I all the images, I make the space the clothing occupied invisible - while the fabric itself is no longer visible, it leaves its mark on the figure. As Lupton says, "“People are accustomed to seeing the background as passive and unimportant in relation to a dominant subject," but these images use the background as their main drivers, giving it power and form by stealing form from what we would typically classify as the subject of the image. 

The following two images again fill the space clothing once occupied with negative space, but I still capture the form of the clothing by sketching and simplifying their outlines. I liked the structure this simplified form had, and still relied on the negative space to fill them. The empty background is the actual substance of the clothing. I find the contrast between the figures in the two interesting, with the first being open and unrestrained, while the second crouched and diffident. The first breaks free from nothing - the second hides behind nothing.